


Got You Covered

by absofruitlynot



Category: Ms Fisher's MODern Murder Mysteries (TV)
Genre: Drabbles Vignettes etc, F/M, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23852218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absofruitlynot/pseuds/absofruitlynot
Summary: Why two people who are mostly legs had chosen this as a hideout, even at desperately short notice, was a question to be pondered at a later date.“I think soon we’ll look back on this and laugh.”(Vignettes of Peregrine and James, solving crimes, sometimes)
Relationships: Peregrine Fisher/James Steed
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> They are so! cute!!!

It had started as an unofficial stakeout.

  
The bad news is that they are surrounded and trapped in a tiny storage room, unable to leave for the foreseeable future without getting made by the smuggling ring that’s a much bigger operation than they originally thought.

  
The good news is that, well, they have a lead.

  
They’ve crammed themselves under a table and behind some boxes, and are now tangled so impossibly that she wonders if they’d ever be able to physically extract themselves, murder suspects and co-conspirators aside. Why two people who are mostly legs had chosen this as a hideout, even at desperately short notice, was a question to be pondered at a later date.

  
“I think soon we’ll look back on this and laugh.”

He scoffs a little; she feels the quick pulse of it against her shoulder (which is wedged into his chest).

  
The entirety of her lower leg is rapidly falling asleep. She has two options: move it forward and risk toppling their shield of boxes, or move it backwards and thread it through his bent ones, risking… well, further entanglements.

  
Thinking purely of their safety, she chooses the latter.

  
Once she’s made her intentions clear, he tries to rearrange himself in an attempt to give her space. She’s able to stretch out her leg as they twist, and she’s so distracted by the relief of it that she doesn’t hear the footsteps approaching outside.

  
Steed does, though, and reacts with alacrity; he pulls her flush against him and covers her mouth to prevent the gasp that she may not have been able to suppress when the door to the room opens and floods the room with light. They lie completely still (except for the skittering heartbeat she feels against her back) while whoever opened the door stands silently for what seems like an eternity.

  
She’d thought they’d slipped in here with more than enough time – had they realized someone else was here? The two of them were shielded and shrouded in a shadow, but this person just kept looking and standing, and breathing…

  
“What’s taking so long?” someone calls from further down the hall.

  
“I can’t find the damn – ah!” Their unwanted guest grabs something from a high shelf with a grunt, then the door slams and they are in the dark again.

  
They breathe a sigh of relief in tandem, his ruffling her hair slightly. He removes the hand that had remained loosely over her mouth, but holds her firm with his arm around her waist.

  
“Next time, we do it my way,” he breathes in her ear, as sternly as a grown man can whisper.

  
Peregrine smiles, and relaxes against the long planes of his body – they’ll be here for a while yet, might as well get comfortable.

  
“Where’s the fun in that, detective?”

* * *

They’re somewhat undercover at a not-so-somewhat seedy nightclub. She thought he’d be out of his element – she feels like she’s struggling to fit in, herself – but he looks strangely at ease. She wonders if they taught this in the academy: the slope of the shoulders, the confidence, the undone top button; or if this was a coolness he had naturally.

  
She may have to see him socially more frequently, to investigate.

  
“There’s our girl,” James says, nodding towards a young woman passing by carrying a tray of drinks.

  
“Should I approach?”

“No, not yet. Let’s observe, for now.”

  
Peregrine nods. She’s in no rush – they have all night, really. They relax for a few minutes, nursing their drinks, looking around. A new song starts to play – something a little slower, but still infectious, and she catches his eye.

  
“Come on, let’s dance.” She holds her hand out to him, which he looks at a little doubtfully.

  
“Peregrine, I’m not, ah—"

  
“Oh, please. We need to blend in, right? We’ll only draw more attention if we sit around here gawking at everyone.” He inclines his head, conceding this. She leans closer. “Or don’t they teach this at detective school?”

  
He rolls his eyes – fondly – and takes her hand as he stands up.

  
The confidence is back as he slides his hand over hers and the other around her waist. He presses his palm into the small of her back, fans out his fingers; she grins up at him, a funny feeling of delight sparkling through her from the tips of her fingers on his shoulder all the way down to her toes. It’s no twist, but he can move; his hips brush against hers as they sway, and even though it’s all still a little too respectful for her taste, there’s something about this hold that is gentle as well as firm, and altogether intoxicating.

  
The feeling between them has shifted from playful to something else, and she’s grateful for the low light as she decides to be bolder, press herself closer, lean into this thin cover. She suddenly finds she can’t quite meet his eyes, and instead rests her head against his broad chest. She should be using this opportunity to surreptitiously observe – but she’s too distracted by the feel of him humming along, and by the hand slipping ever so slightly lower on her waist.

  
“I should… I should go talk to her,” she whispers as the song ends, trying to maintain a handle on things.

  
“No,” he says, and her heart skips a beat. “No, I’ll do it – I’ll be the lech getting my lovely date a drink while trying it on with the waitress.”

  
“You’ll have to be very smooth.”

  
He gives her a small, lopsided grin. “I think I’ll do alright.”

  
They step apart; she walks back to where they’d been sitting as he makes his way to the bar. She watches him sidle up to the waitress – who knew he could _sidle_ – and just before he makes his move, he looks back at her and winks broadly.

* * *

Afterwards, she’d say it was his fault, and he’d say it was absolutely hers.

She’s trying to make quick work of a lock in an alley by the wharf, and he’s trying to make quick work of solving a murder without endangering any bloody civilians.

He slips around the corner and nearly trips over himself when he sees her, bent over the doorknob, dressed as a cat burglar in all black all the way down to a rather fetching beret. He can almost see her heart stop when she glances over her shoulder and sees him. Recovering quickly, she huffs in annoyance.

  
“For goodness sake, James – !”

  
“You could have at least called, Peregrine!”

  
“And have you tell me not to come? Not likely!”

  
“ _I’m_ not even really supposed to be here, particularly without backup – ”

  
“Well, you have me,” she says brightly, as if that’s final, and turns back to the task at hand. He searches for a response – _impossible_ woman – but he supposes that she _is_ here already, and it would really be a shame for all of her work on the lock to go to waste.

  
He hears a car door slam in the distance and she looks around at him, eyes wide. He does some quick math – cornered, ambushed, likely outnumbered or at least outgunned – and does what he feels is the only sensible thing: he grabs her by the waist, pulls her away from the door, pushes her against the opposite wall, and kisses her.

  
To her credit, she reacts nearly immediately; good thing, too, because now that he’s started he cannot imagine ever stopping. This is nothing his hazy memory of the small, soft thing they’d shared on her living room floor; this is full and open-mouthed, a little desperate: the way that people tend to kiss in alleys. She runs her hands through his hair; once quickly to debauch it thoroughly from its careful combing, and then once more, leisurely, fingers lingering on the back of his neck, sending shivers through him from where she traces his skin.

  
They don’t have long – there’s a voice that’s getting louder – and she’s arching herself up towards him, biting his lip, and, God _, sighing_. He drops his hand underneath her knee and, purely in the spirit of the performance, hitches it around his waist. She smiles against his lips and wraps her arms fully around his neck, holding him to her, staking her claim.

  
They are just teetering on the edge of something dangerous when their company arrives. He crowds himself closer around her in what is both a protective instinct and an attempt to hang onto this moment just a little longer.

  
“What the hell is this?!”

  
“Bugger off,” James says, honestly.

  
He doesn’t have to feign annoyance as he turns his head to face the man – men – he was glad to see they hadn’t been caught in a more compromising position by. He’ll have time later to be angry at the thought of them finding her breaking in alone – but for now he needed to concentrate on getting her out of here without rousing any further suspicion.

  
He and the man snipe at each other back and forth a few times, until he feels her hand on his cheek, turning him back to face her.

  
“Come on, baby, let’s get out of here.” His heart nearly stops at the tone of her voice – low and teasing – and he finds himself looking at her lips for longer than is appropriate when there are at least three suspected criminals waiting for you to make yourself scarce.

  
He lets her down gently and places a hand protectively and low on her back, and doesn’t spare another glance behind him as he agrees that yeah, sweetheart, he knows somewhere much more comfortable.

  
When Steed arrests him a day and a half later, he can see the ringleader narrowing his eyes, trying and failing to place him.

* * *

She looks up to see him barreling through the door, shouting her name. He stops short when he sees her, hair wild, gold-plated pistol in hand, knee between the shoulder blades of a woman James was very much looking forward to charging with double homicide.

  
“What, did you take the tram again?”

  
He laughs despite himself.

  
After his backup arrives and their suspect is being carted off, he makes a show of taking out his notebook and flipping it open as he walks up to where he had told her to wait. He doesn’t want to show how proud he is of her, as that would only encourage her, but judging from her grin, she already knows.

  
“It’s your turn to give a statement, Miss – Peregrine, you’re bleeding!”

She looks at him in surprise, then follows his line of sight to her upper arm, which, as it turns out, is in fact smeared with blood.

  
“Oh, would you look at that.” She’s remembering the knife, now, and it’s also occurring to her that maybe that fight took a little more out of her than she’d thought.

  
Soon, she’s perched on the edge of her bathtub, and he’s helping her out of his suit jacket – which he’d helped her into when it was clear her primary concern was not staining the passenger seat of her car with blood. The wound is not as deep as they’d feared at first, but it’s still a significant slice, and he’d insisted on seeing her home.

  
He gently unwraps the necktie (his necktie) that she had taken the initiative to remove herself and tie around her bicep. He knows that she’s perfectly capable of cleaning and dressing it herself, but he finds himself holding her arm steady and wiping the blood off with a warm washcloth – and he finds her to be letting him. He can feel her gaze on him, but he concentrates on his mission, resisting the temptation to give into the sudden intimacy of the moment.

  
“You should draw yourself a bath,” he says as he finishes. She seems to pull herself out of a reverie, and smiles and nods in agreement. He stands. “I can see myself out. Good night, Peregrine.”

  
He’s halfway down the drive when he realizes what he needs to do. He turns back and strides to the door, presses the buzzer.

  
When she answers, she’s already in a silk bathrobe, looking at him with bright, uncertain eyes.

  
“I apologize – I do still need to take your statement.” The understanding hits her with a small huff of laughter, and maybe a little bit of relief as well.

  
“Come on up then, detective.”

  
He sits with his back against the wall next to the door of her bathroom, left ajar. He takes notes on her account of the evening as she soaks it off, then he closes his notebook and they talk about nonsense, and then they sit in silence, happily exhausted and unwilling to say goodbye just yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's more!!

They had, foolishly, broken out a decanter of her aunt’s scotch.

They’d been particularly satisfied with the results of a case and, feeling bold, Peregrine had decided to take a page out of Phryne’s book and invite the detective over for a nightcap.

They’re in over their heads.

It’s well past midnight by now and they’re sitting on her settee, carefully arranged in an attempt at nonchalance. They’re both giddy with it; it’s getting increasingly harder to focus on anything but each other’s faces. His tie is loose around his neck and there’s a small smile playing around his lips that she can’t keep from glancing at, and his pulse jumps every time he sees her gaze on his mouth.

And then there’s the honesty.

“It does get – lonely – alone in this big house, sometimes.”

His eyes are so kind that she has to look away for a minute.

“But you belong here.”

“Yeah.” She smiles, full and bright. “I think I do.”

Eventually, she yawns, deeply, and he snaps a little bit back to reality.

“It’s late, I should go, let you get some sleep.” He stands, and she shoots up to follow.

“Absolutely not – look at the state of you! Do you know how _many_ guest rooms I have here?”

He grins, loopily. “One of these days, you’ll need to end up inebriated on my floor,” he says. “To make it even,” he adds, in an unsuccessful attempt to make that statement less blatantly suggestive.

She rolls her eyes and tugs on his arm to lead him through the house, but he surprises her (and himself, a little) by pulling her back and launching her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, marching her towards her room. She’s a little breathless -- with laughter, mostly, but also with something deeper and basic that is more impressed with this display of strength than she’d care to admit.

He deposits her on her bed with a surprising amount of grace. He straightens up and looks down at her, propped up on her elbows and grinning. Their eyes meet and there’s a beat when neither of them breathes. He breaks it off first, announcing with some degree of forced casualness that he’s going to fetch them both some water.

By the time he comes back, she’s changed into those wretchedly charming pajamas that have ruined his life. He hands her a glass and she clinks it against his, pats the spot next to her on the bed.

It’s a very romantic bed, and he’s a little flustered.

But she’s strangely at ease, so he follows her lead, settles in at her side with his back against the headboard. At some point in the evening they had come to an unspoken, mutual agreement that _this_ was not how they wanted _this_ to happen – so despite the thrill that trembles through them every time their knees knock together or their elbows brush, there’s no expectation, just company.

Eventually her eyelids do begin to droop for real, and soon after she’s asleep on his shoulder. He gently takes the empty glass from her hand, places it next to his on the nightstand, and carefully guides her from sitting to lying down properly, pulls a blanket over her.

He finds himself at a hazy crossroads. He wills himself to get up, to find his way to a plush guest suite, but his tired, tipsy body betrays him and before he can stop himself he is lying down and stretching out too. He carves enough space between them in one last, ineffective pass at respectability, but he can still feel the warmth from her body on the other side of the bed, and it somehow both soothes and aches as he falls asleep.

They, of course, wake up wrapped around each other.

**Author's Note:**

> There may or may not be more to come here - I just enjoyed putting these two in increasingly compromising situations without having to worry about too much plot. 
> 
> There are also some much hornier endings to these, available upon request.


End file.
